Double Dare

By: Cassandra Dee

I sputtered, plopping onto the leather because frankly, there was no other choice.

“This is ludicrous,” I began slowly. “I’m just a barista and art student. I don’t get what’s going on. You saved me from the guy that morning, but now I’m locked up here with handcuffs? What is this, some kind of sick joke where you kidnap women? It’s not funny.”

The dark-haired man shot me an amused glance.

“Exactly,” he said, “It’s not funny at all because this is no joke. But we’d like to get to know you better. We’ve been watching you Katie, and you seem to fit the profile.”

I goggled at him.

“Watching me? When? How? Profile for what? What the hell is going on?”

“We have needs at Major Corp. Some very specific needs and we need someone who fits.”

My mouth snapped shut. This didn’t sound good.

“What needs?” I whispered. “I’m sure there’s nothing I can do for you. I’m a penniless art student, making ends meet by working as a barista. There’s nothing you could want from me. Nothing you could need. We’ve never even met,” I concluded helplessly.

Mason was silent for a moment, just taking me in, the flushed cheeks, the hotly heaving bosom. Damn, the man was so gorgeous that I immediately scolded myself for even having the thought. So what if he had a muscled bod beneath that suit? Thighs as thick as tree trunks? So what if those blue eyes were penetrating, seeing straight to my heart? He was still my kidnapper for crying out loud, the physical shouldn’t matter even if he made me tingle deep in my puss. Putting on my most serious face, I tried again.

“Some company, I guess. I don’t know, never thought about it. Why, what does that have to do with me?”

Mr. Major grinned again.

“It’s owned by a corporation, Major Arts, which in turn is owned by Major Enterprises,” he said smoothly. “So in fact, we own the union Art League.”

That made me stop. Major Enterprises is known for being a cutthroat business, as scary as it gets. Even me, Katie Jones, knows about them because the company’s name was on dozens of buildings around the city, from museums to public spaces. But the union Art League was a school. What did the two have to do with one another? Why in the world would Major invest in an art school? And reading my mind, Mason shrugged.

“We have investments in a lot of things, but right now, all you have to know is that Major owns union .”

“So?” I asked slowly. “Why does that matter?”

His eyes gleamed again.

“It matters because we’ve been watching, like I said,” he replied simply. “We’ve been watching you from day one, and we like what we see.”

Again, that answered nothing and I was totally exasperated.

“But how? What do you mean by watching? And what exactly are you looking for?” For now, I ignored the alpha’s use of “we.” There were more pressing things at the moment, like my freedom.

Mason threw me another smile.

“Using cameras of course,” he said, like it was completely obvious. “See that over there?” he asked, pointing to a small gray hemisphere attached to the wall. “These are all over every public building, in every hallway, every conference room, every classroom. So we watch whenever we want, it’s no big deal.”

Okay, this was a little creepy. I knew on some subconscious level that cameras were everywhere, but it was different hearing it out loud. Besides, who looks at the tape? Mostly it was just bored security guards yawning and occasionally throwing a glance at a bank of TVs, right?

But evidently not. This was some special ops thing, where the CEO of a company was looking at the tape himself, watching a young female come and go.